Alex Ruthmann’s Blog

Writing workshop educator Katie Wood Ray has written a great chapter on how to read like a teacher of writing. It has always been a challenge for me and with the methods students I work with to know how to find good pieces of music that can serve as models of compositional process for young composers.

An approach I have found useful in my own teaching has been to read Katie’s chapter, but instead substitute the word “listening” when she writes “reading,” substitute “piece of music” when she writes “text,” and substitute “composing” when she writes “writing.” The pedagogical models used in process writing classrooms and approaches to “listening” by Katie Wood Ray can have tremendous results when adapted for use to support student composing in music classes. Give it a try!